by John Norman
"That is true," I admitted.
"It is fortunate I am here," said the free woman. "You might need my protection."
"You think there is a dangerous fellow lurking about?" I asked.
"I am sure of it," she said.
"We shall be on our guard," I said.
"I will take him soon," she said. "He is not far." She wheeled the tharlarion away. "Return to the pleasures of your slut," she said.
"But we must be on our guard," I called.
"There is little need," she said. "I will take the fellow within minutes."
I turned to the girl beside me, who was crying.
"Are you shamed?" I asked her.
"Yes," she said.
"Good," I said.
She looked at me.
"You are a slave," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said, her head down.
"Watch," I said. She lifted her head.
The free woman was at the edge of the pond. She did not dismount. Her bow was ready. In an instant it might clear the saddle to either side. From the saddle she studied the tracks in the moonlight. She moved the tharlarion into the water. Doubtless she thought the pond had been waded, to obscure tracks, which would emerge on the other side. Had she been a more experienced hunter she would have circled the pond to determine this for certain.
The blond girl beside me kissed me. "What does she know of being a woman?" she asked.
"Very little," I said. "But perhaps by tomorrow at noon she will know more."
"I do not understand, Master," said the girl.
"Watch," I said.
The girl, astride the tharlarion, moved deeper into the pond.
"She is an arrogant girl, is she not, Master?" asked the slave.
"Yes," I said.
Suddenly emerging from the water at the very side of the tharlarion there was the large, fierce figure of a man. His hand closed on the girl's left arm and dragged her swiftly, forcibly from the saddle, she crying out, startled, dashing her shoulder and headfirst into the water at his side. He thrust her under the surface following her under.
"She knew too little of men even to fear them," I said.
In a moment the figure of the man reared up, shaking his head to clear his eyes of water. The girl's knife was in his right hand; his left hand held her head, grasped by the hair, beneath the surface. He looked about. He jerked her head up from the water and she gasped and sputtered. When she could scream he thrust her head again beneath the surface. The tharlarion moved about, water at the stirrup, shifting, tossing its head about. Then its reins hung in the water. It was a small, hunting tharlarion, controlled by bit and bridle. The large upright tharlarion, or war tharlarion, are guided by voice commands and the blows of spears. The man put the knife in his teeth and, fiercely, smote the tharlarion. It grunted and, splashing, fled from the water, running in its birdlike gait across the fields. The man again pulled up the girl from the water. She spit water into the pond, and vomited, and coughed. The man then tore the belt from her and fastened her hands behind her back. He thrust the knife he had held in his teeth in his belt. He broke off a tube of reed. The girl looked at him, frightened. In the distance I could see the four guardsmen, moving swiftly, trying to catch up with the girl who had broken away from them in the rash vanity of her hunt, desiring to be first upon the prize. She had apparently broken the hunting line without informing them. Perhaps, too, her tharlarion was swifter than theirs. It bore less weight. I saw the man take the tube of reed he had broken off and thrust it in her mouth; then the knife he carried, hers, lay across her throat; I saw her eyes, wild, in the moonlight, and then he, another bit of reed in his mouth, pulled her quietly below the surface.
In a few moments the four guardsmen, distraught, reined up beside my furs.
I looked up from the collared slave in my arms.
"Tal," said their leader.
"Tal," I said.
"Have you see aught of the Lady Tina of Lydius?" inquired one of the men.
"The huntress?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"She was here, inquiring about a sport slave," I said.
"Where did she go?" asked one of the men.
"Have you not taken the sport slave yet?" I asked. "It is late."
"Have you see the Lady Tina?" asked the leader of the men.
"Yes," I said, "earlier."
"Where did she go?" asked the leader.
"Are there tracks?" I asked.
"Here," said one of the men, "here, see here. There are tracks."
They followed the tracks to the side of the pond. Had they crossed the pond they might, in the breadth of their passage, have struck the submerged couple. These men, however, apparently more skilled than the girl, first circled the pond to discover emergent tracks. They found these, of course, almost immediately, those of the running tharlarion. In their haste, and in their desire to overtake their lovely charge, they sped into the night. It was not even clear to me that they, in their concern with the tracks of the tharlarion, observed the tracks of the man leading to the pond. Too, as I determined later, his tracks had been, for the most part, obscured by the tracks of the beast of his lovely huntress. Some of the more obvious ones, too, I had erased with a branch.
I assumed the couple might be chilled upon emerging from the water and so I took the liberty of building a fire. The wood was gathered by my slave, whom I named Constance.
In time I saw the man's head lift slowly, almost imperceptibly, from the pond. He reconnoitered, and then, dragging the girl with him, her wrists bound behind her back, approached the fire.
"You had better get out of those wet clothes," I told the girl.
She looked at me with horror.
"Don't," she begged her captor.
She squirmed, held, as he cut the tunic and cape from her, and then she was thrown on her belly on the grass and the wet hose and boots were drawn from her. He then knelt across her body and freed her hands. With the knife he slit the belt into narrow strips, improvising binding fiber. He then retied her hands behind her back and, crouching beside her, crossed and bound her ankles. She struggled to her knees. She faced us.
"I am the Lady Tina of Lydius," she said. "Free me!"
We looked at her.
"I am the Lady Tina of Lydius," she said. "I demand to be immediately freed."
I thought she would look well dancing naked in a paga tavern before men.
"Free me!" she cried.
I had once owned a slave named Tina, who also had been from Lydius. It is not that uncommon a name. The Tina whom I had known was now free, an esteemed member of the caste of thieves in Port Kar, one of the most skillful in the city. She was doing well for herself.
I looked at this Tina. She was obviously too beautiful to free. She would be kept as a slave for men.
"You have won," she said to the slave. "I acknowledge that in the generosity of my freedom. Release me now and I shall petition that you not be slain."
"In the morning," he said, "they will bring sleen."
"Yes," she said.
"Will you discuss the matter with them?" he asked.
"Perhaps they will be leashed," she said.
The man laughed. "Do you think me a fool?" he asked. "They will be run free from the kennels. Do you think they want me alive?"
"I own you," she said to the man. "Free me!" I recalled that he had been purchased from the pens of Lydius for her sport. Apparently she had stood the purchase price. Her arrogance, and airs, suggested that she might well have done so.
"You seem rich and educated," I said.
"I am both," she said. "I am of the high merchants."
"I, too, was of the merchants," said Constance.
"Be silent, Slave Girl," snapped the free woman.
"Yes, Mistress," stammered Constance. She placed a branch on the fire. She withdrew. She was new to her collar.
The free woman glared at the man who had captured her. "Free me, now!" she said.
&nbs
p; He looked at her, fingering the knife he had taken from her.
The free woman squirmed in her bonds, frightened. She looked at me. "You are free," she said, "protect me!"
"What is your Home Stone?" I asked.
"That of Lydius," she said.
"I do not share it," I said.
The man crouched near her. His hand was behind her neck, holding her. The point of the dagger was in her belly.
"I free you! I free you!" she said.
"Have some meat," I said to him. I had been roasting some bosk over the small fire.
He, now a free man, came and sat near me, across the fire from me. The free woman shrank back, in the shadows. Constance knelt behind me and to my left, making herself unobtrusive. Occasionally she fed the fire.
The free man and I fed. "What is your name?" I asked. I threw a bit of meat to Constance, which she snatched up and ate.
"Ram," said he, "once of Teletus, but friendless now in that island, one banished."
"Your crime?" I asked.
"In a tavern," he said, "I slew two men in a brawl."
"They are strict in Teletus," I said.
"One of them stood high in the administration of the island," he said.
"I see," I said.
"I have been in many cities," he said.
"How do you work your living?" I asked. "Are you a bandit?"
"No," said he. "I am a trader. I trade north of Ax Glacier for the furs of sleen, the pelts of leem and larts."
"A lonely work," I said.
"I have no Home Stone," he shrugged.
I pitied him.
"How is it," I asked, "that you fell slave?"
"The hide bandits," he said.
"I do not understand," I said.
"They have closed the country north of Ax Glacier," he said.
"How can this be?" I asked.
"Tarnsmen, on patrol," said he. "I was seized and, though free, sold south as a slave."
"Why should these men wish to close off the north?" I asked.
"I do not know," he said.
"Tarns cannot live at that latitude," I said.
"In the summer they can," said he. "Indeed, thousands of birds migrate each spring to the nesting cliffs of the polar basin."
"Not tarns," I said.
"No," said he. "Not tarns." Tarns were not migratory birds.
"Surely men can slip through these patrols," I said.
"Doubtless some do," he said.
"You were not so fortunate," I said.
"I did not even know they came as enemies," he laughed. "I welcomed them. Then I was shackled." He chewed on a piece of meat, then swallowed it. "I was sold at Lydius," he said. He looked up, again chewing, at the free woman. "I was bought there by this high lady," he said. He swallowed down the meat.
"What are you going to do with me?" she asked.
"I can think of many things," he said, regarding her.
"It would be simple to untie her ankles," I said.
"Do not touch me!" she said. "I am free."
"Perhaps you are a slave," he said.
"No," she said. "No! I am free!"
"We shall see," he said.
"I do not understand," she said.
He turned away from her, wiping his hands on his thighs. He went over to the edge of the pond, and, kneeling down beside the water, drank. When he got up he looked at the tracks there. When he returned, he smiled. "My thanks," said he.
I nodded.
I scanned the skies for the tarn. Game must indeed be scarce, I thought.
Constance put more wood on the fire. She glanced at the Lady Tina.
"Do not look at me, Slave!" hissed the Lady Tina.
"Forgive me, Mistress," said Constance. She looked away, frightened. She did not wish to be beaten.
"Sir," said the free woman, addressing her captor, Ram, once of Teletus.
"Yes," he said.
"My modesty is offended," she said. "I find it disagreeable to be unclothed before a slut of a slave who is not even my personal maid."
"In the morning," said he, "you will be partially clothed."
She looked at him, puzzled.
"May I command your girl," he asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Constance," said he.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Look well and carefully upon our prisoner," he said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
The free woman turned her head away, in fury.
"Do you think," he asked, "that she might make a pretty slave."
"I am not a man, Master," said Constance, "but I should think she might make even a beautiful slave."
"Please!" protested the free woman.
"Look upon her when and as you wish," said Ram.
"Yes, Master," smiled Constance. I saw her make a tiny face at the Lady Tina.
"Oh!" cried the Lady Tina, in fury, squirming in the leather.
"What do you think?" asked Ram of me.
"She squirms well," I said. "I think she is excellent meat for marking."
"I hate you all!" said the Lady Tina. "And I will never be a slave! You cannot make me a slave! Never, never will I be a slave. No man can make me a slave!"
"I shall not even try," said Ram.
She looked at him, startled.
"I shall not make you my slave," he said, "unless you beg to be my slave."
She threw back her head and laughed. "I would die first," she said.
"It is late now," I said. "I think we should sleep."
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Tarl," said I. "Let that suffice."
"Accepted," he said, smiling. He would not pry further into my affairs. Doubtless he assumed I was bandit, fugitive, or assassin.
I took Constance by the arm, and threw her to his feet. It was a simple act of Gorean courtesy.
Constance looked at me, wildly.
"Please him," I said.
"Yes, Master," she whispered.
"Yes, slut," called the free woman. "Please him! Please him well, you stinking little slave!"
"My thanks, my friend," said the fellow once from Teletus. He took Constance by the arm to one side and threw her on the grass beneath him.
In a few Ehn she crept to my side in the furs, shuddering. He was asleep.
I looked over at the free woman. She was struggling in the narrow leather which confined her. But she would be unable to free herself. She had watched in fury, and, I think, ill-concealed envy at the rapine which had been worked upon Constance.
I, in the light of the subsiding fire, watched the Lady Tina fight weeping with her bonds.
He had said that in the morning he would partially clothe her. I had not understood this.
I observed her struggling. I thought she would look well in a slave collar. Then I went to sleep.
* * * *
"Hear it?" I asked.
It was early morning. Ram sat upright in the grass. I stood near the tarn, which had returned in the night, its beak smeared with blood and the hairs from the small yellow tabuk, of the sort which frequent Ka-la-na thickets. I cleaned its beak and talons with dried grass. I had already saddled the beast.
Constance lay to one side, curled in the furs. The free woman, the Lady Tina of Lydius, too, slept, lying on her side, exhausted from her struggles of the night. The sky was overcast, and gray.
"Yes," he said. "Sleen."
We could hear their squealing in the distance. There must have been four or five of the beasts.
"Master?" asked Constance, rubbing her eyes.
"It is sleen, in the distance," I said. "Get out of the furs, lazy girl."
She was frightened.
"We have time," I said.
"What weight can the tarn carry?" asked Ram.
"It is strong," I said. "It can carry, if need be, a rider and freighted tarn basket."
"Might I then request passage?" he smiled.
"It is yours," I said.
I rolled
the furs in which Constance had lain, and put them across the back of the saddle, fastening the two straps which held them.
We could hear the sleen cries quite clearly now. I do not think they were more than a pasang away.
"This ring," I said to Ram, pointing to a ring at the left of the saddle, "will be yours."
"Excellent," he said.
"Come here, Constance," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said, running to me.
"Awaken, Lady Tina," I heard Ram say. He was bending near her.
"Cross your wrists before your body," I said to Constance. She did so and I lashed them together. I then carried her to the right side of the saddle and placed her left foot in a ring there, which I had wrapped with fur. Her tied wrists I looped over the pommel.
I, standing in the stirrup, looked over the fields. There were five sleen. They were about a half of a pasang away, excited, squealing, their snouts hurrying at the turf.
"I have an extra tunic here," I said to Ram, throwing it to him.
"What are you doing?" demanded the Lady Tina.
He had taken the rags he had worn about his hips and was, with what had been her dagger, punching holes in them. Through these holes he threaded a strip of her belt. He knotted the rags about her hips. Because of the lovely flare of her hips, the smallness of her waist, the sweet, exciting swelling of her breasts, she would be unable, her hands tied behind her, to pull or scrape the garment from her.
"Is your modesty less offended now?" he asked. He slipped on the tunic which I had thrown him.
"What is that sound I hear?" she asked.
"Sleen," he said.
"I do not understand," she said, tremulously.
He cut the leather strips which had bound her ankles. "You will now be able to run," he said.
"I do not understand," she said.
"You soon will," he said.
I climbed to the saddle. Ram placed his left foot in the ring which I had designated and looped his left arm about the pommel of the saddle.
She struggled to her feet. "Where are you going?" she cried.
"To Lydius, Lady Tina," I informed her. I had not originally intended to go to Lydius, but I had acquired a girl in the fields. She was not yet branded. I would have her marked in Lydius.